Fighting Back

Sometimes it takes a long time to respond. Beginning about a decade ago a group of Members of Congress began to bash higher education for their "runaway costs" - never mind that Congressional spending makes higher education seem like a piker here - but they began to natter a lot. They asked a group of higher education experts, including me, to do a National Commission and the Commission spent three months (the time alloted) and came up with a pretty good report. The conclusions said - a) Colleges are not well organized to think about costs but b) they have done some stuff on controlling costs and c) they should do more. Soon after that the National Association of Business Officers (NACUBO) convened a group which tried to develop a methodology to count college costs. With more than 3000 institutions that is not a small task but they worked hard for a couple of years and devised a pretty good methodology to explain college costs. What you are able to explain you are better able to control. Colleges and universities then began a two stage effort in this area- first, many began to think differently about costs -and the multiple causes of increasing costs. But second, states began to lower their level of subsidy to state supported universities (in the same way that universities in Europe were being treated) and so the price of higher education (which most people confuse with cost) began to rise.

But the Members of Congress continued to press on. In the bill which reauthorizes the Higher Education Act, they inserted a set of price controls - not that is what they called them but that is what they are. They also responded by adding some new bureaucratic requirements on things like transfer of credit among institutions - which again is complicated as a result of the diversity of institutions.

Last week at my Association's retreat we had a discussion of the current state of the reuthorization bill. One of my presidents drafted an op ed over the weekend which summarizes in a forceful way - why the idea of price controls by any structure - is a bad one. Let's hope that Members of Congress begin to think more carefully about how things should work.
Fat chance for that.